Green Room

A National Call to Action: One Citizen – One Vote

In 2002, a website called the World Social Web Site sounded the alarm that Republicans would be out “intimidating minorities” on election day.

“The Republican Party, with the backing of the Bush administration, will post thousands of party functionaries at polling stations in various parts of the country on Election Day, November 5, to intimidate working class and minority voters from casting their ballots. This anti-democratic operation in being carried out under the cover of ‘poll watching.’

Large numbers of ‘poll watchers’ are to be posted in key places where the contest for congressional seats and governorships is expected to be very close, particularly targeting minority voters and those in strongly Democratic districts.”

During critical mid-term elections and anytime they feel threatened, the left swipes its trusty race card. An article out this week once again raises those fears.

“Minnesota Majority, the North Star Tea Party Patriots and Minnesota Voters Alliance plan to spy on your voting this Election Day….

Are volunteers going to approach voters in line outside schools and fire stations and scare them into showing their papers?

DFL Party Chairman Brian Melendez smells a rat: Election Integrity Watch is trying to dissuade minorities and seniors from voting. ‘There’s a possibility that they will keep people from turning out to the polls,’ he told MPR.”

Let’s get this straight. The left is concerned with citizens who wish to protect the integrity of the electoral system, but not with Black Panthers carrying weapons and spouting hate filled rhetoric? Okay, just checking.

To be perfectly clear on what the standard in for determining what constitutes voter intimidation I have included the entire section from Wikipedia.

Voter intimidation involves putting undue pressure on a voter or group of voters so that they will vote a particular way, or not at all. Absentee and other remote voting can be more open to some forms of intimidation as the voter does not have the protection and privacy of the polling location. Intimidation can take a range of forms.

Violence or the threat of violence: In its simplest form, voters from a particular demographic or known to support a particular party or candidate are directly threatened by supporters of another party or candidate or those hired by them. In other cases supporters of a particular party make it known that if a particular village or neighborhood is found to have voted the ‘wrong’ way, reprisals will be made against that community. Another method is to make a general threat of violence, for example a bomb threat which has the effect of closing a particular polling place, thus making it difficult for people in that area to vote.[8]

Attacks on polling places: Polling places in an area known to support a particular party or candidate may be targeted for vandalism, destruction or threats, thus making it difficult or impossible for people in that area to vote.

Legal threats: In this case voters will be made to believe, accurately or otherwise, that they are not legally entitled to vote, or that they are legally obliged to vote a particular way. Voters who are not confident about their entitlement to vote may also be intimidated by real or implied authority figures who suggest that those who vote when they are not entitled to will be imprisoned, deported or otherwise punished.[9][10] For example in 2004, in Wisconsin and elsewhere voters allegedly received flyers that said, “If you already voted in any election this year, you can’t vote in the Presidential Election”, implying that those who had voted in earlier primary elections were ineligible to vote. Also, “If anybody in your family has ever been found guilty of anything you can’t vote in the Presidential Election.” Finally, “If you violate any of these laws, you can get 10 years in prison and your children will be taken away from you.”[11][12] Another method, allegedly used in Cook County, Illinois in 2004, is to falsely tell particular people that they are not eligible to vote.[10]

Economic threats: In company towns in which one company employs most of the working population, the company may threaten workers with disciplinary action if they do not vote the way their employer dictates. One method of doing this is the ‘shoe polish method’. This method entails coating the voting machine‘s lever or button of the opposing candidate(s) with shoe polish. This method works when an employee of a company that orders him to vote a certain way votes contrary to those orders. After the voter exits the voting booth, a conspirator to the fraud (a precinct captain or other local person in collusion with the employee’s management) handshakes the voter. The conspirator then subtly check’s the voter’s hand for any shoe polish and notes that the voter has left some shoe polish after the handshake. Soon afterward that unfortunate voter gets fired or faces other unpleasant consequences.[citation needed]

As Americans nothing is more sacred than one citizen – one vote. Free and Fair elections is something all Americans can agree on. Lately, there has been a widespread misinformation campaign orchestrated by organizations like the ACLU and Project Vote to tie America’s history of racial relations with attempts to fix a broken system.What many on the left fail to tell people is that their actions have been chipping away at the very system it claims to protect. That’s why today, a national call to action is being issues.

As the founder of the King Street Patriots put it:

“If you are one of the millions of Americans outraged by corruption at the highest levels of our nation’s government, then you can help us stop fraud where it begins – at the polling place, in the precinct where you live, in the streets of your city.”

Inspired by the first ever Beverly Hills Tea Party, the situation is that as Americans we need boots on the ground across the nation at the polls, not only to vote but ready with cameras and video recorders. This is a national call for citizen journalists!! If you are a volunteer working the polls and you see something happen please document and record. Resolute Media Group, Emerging Corruption and other New Media outlets will use social media (i.e. Face-book and twitter) integration to get the stories out that the liberal media will not cover accurately if at all. Text “Patriot” to 90210.

Bold? Yes. Necessary? Yes. If the eyes of the nation are on the polls, then America is safe. Recent news events have led the left to try to turn the back the tide of citizen journalists.

“….every Tom, Dick and Harriet with a blog is a ‘citizen journalist.’

Worse, they are spreading like the common cold. Ask Shirley Sherrod if you don’t believe me. Sometimes it feels as if there are more “citizen journalists” than citizens. It is hard to know how to feel about that.

After all, it used to be that you couldn’t enjoy freedom of the press unless you could afford to own a press. The Internet has opened the public square to more voices, and you can’t complain about that.

But I don’t believe in citizen journalism because journalism — like any profession worthy of the name — has standards and ethics, and if you don’t sign on to those, I can no more trust you than I can a doctor who refused the Hippocratic oath or a lawyer who failed the bar exam.”

While the actions of some may raise questions, the rise of new media has allowed more information to flow directly to the people. It is almost ludicrous that an industry with a history of spiking stories, partisan activities and slanted reporting would even attempt to cry foul.

When America was founded, ordinary citizens used the media to spread ideas and even those who lacked funding were able to find ways of disseminating information. As citizen journalist our role is not to interact or intimidate, but to observe and report. The left should look at this as protecting the rights of everyone and they are welcome to participate.

Blowback

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Comments

Completely anecdotal and subjective tidbit here – my family used to live in Virginia Beach, in a nice area that turned pretty bad while we lived there. During the 2008 election, a neighbor across the street worked for the Obama campaign. They found out we supported McCain (well, we were supporting the GOP at any rate), and thus began continuous harassment from several of our neighbors (Eventually, our house was broken into, vandalized, and robbed by one of those neighbor’s two sons. This incident was not directly related to the election, but stemmed from the harassment, since one of their excuses were that my family were a bunch of racists). They would drive by our house, several times a day – or stand just off my property line and watch us or yell slurs. The police did nothing, except advise us to take down our yard sign. It was awful, but I was a little relieved that Obama won – it stopped most of the overt hostility towards us.

I think that there’s a perception among people that this sort of intimidation only goes in one direction, and that people like my family and I are the ones dishing it out. I sincerely hope this effort works, and that it shows that voter intimidation is not as everyone thinks it to be. I’ll be passing this information to the people I know, thank you!

Anita, you are doing a beyond great job getting us informed. We will see how this comes out Nov.2. The d’s are heck bent on seeing they keep their ‘I have been here so many years you don’t dare vote me out group’. This goes for both r’s and d’s. I hope every person voting has a cell phone to see if there is anything going on for the voting that is no on the up and up. The problem I have, is with our military, do or do they not get their votes counted in the election? If the postal service is delivering their ballots, will they get there?
L